In C. Verrem

Did you ever hear of such a man? Did you ever hear, O judges, of such impudence? of such audacity? to impose on the cities the payment of a sum of money in proportion to the number of soldiers, and to fix a regular price, six hundred sesterces, for the discharge of each sailor! and as those who paid that sum were released from service for the whole summer, Verres pocketed all that he received both for their pay and for their maintenance. And by this means he made a double profit of the discharge of one person. And this most insane of men, at a time of frequent invasion of pirates, and of imminent danger to the province, did this so openly, that the pirates themselves were aware of it, and the whole province was a witness to it.

When, owing to this man's inordinate avarice, there was a fleet indeed in name in Sicily, but in reality empty ships, fit only to carry plunder for the praetor, not to strike terror into pirates; nevertheless, while Publius Caesetius and Publius Tadius were sailing about with these ten half-manned ships, they, I will not say took, but led away with them one ship, laden with the spoils of the pirates, evidently overwhelmed and sinking with the burden of its freight. That vessel was full of a number of most beautiful quilts, full of quantities of well-wrought plate, and of coined money; full of embroidered robes. This one vessel was not taken by our fleet, but was found at Megaris, a place not far from Syracuse. And when the news was brought to him, although he was lying in his tent on the shore, with a lot of women, drunk, still he roused himself, and immediately sent to the quaestor and to his own lieutenant many men to act as guards, in order that everything might be brought to him to see in an uninjured state, as soon as possible.

The vessel is brought to Syracuse. All expect that the pirates will be punished. He, as if it was not a case of pirates being taken, but of a booty being brought to him, considers all the prisoners who were old or ugly as enemies; those who had any beauty, or youth, or skill in anything, he takes away: some he distributed among his clerks, his retinue, and his son; six skillful musicians he sends to Rome as a present to some friend of his. All that night he spent in unloading the ship. No one sees the captain of the pirate vessel, who ought to have been executed. And to this very day every one believes, (how much truth there is in the belief, you also may be able to conjecture,) that Verres secretly took money of the pirates for the release of the captain of the pirates.

It is only a conjecture; but no one can be a good judge who is not influenced by such certain grounds of suspicion. You know the man, you know the custom of all men,—how gladly any one who has taken a chief of pirates or of the enemy, allows him to be seen openly by all men. But of all the body of citizens and settlers at Syracuse, I never saw one man, O judges, who said that he had seen that captain of the pirates who had been taken; though all men, as is the regular custom, flocked to the prison, asked for him, and were anxious to see him. What happened to make that man be kept so carefully out of sight, that no one was ever able to get a glimpse of him, even by accident? Though all the seafaring men at Syracuse, who had often heard of the name of that captain, who had often been alarmed by him, wished to feed their eyes on, and to gratify their minds with his torture and execution, yet no one was allowed even to see him.

One man, Publius Servilius, took more captains of pirates alive than all our commanders put together had done before. Was any one at any time denied the enjoyment of being allowed to see a captive pirate? On the contrary: wherever Servilius went he afforded every one that most delightful spectacle, of pirates taken prisoners and in chains. Therefore, people everywhere ran to meet him, so that the, assembled not only in the towns through which the pirates were led, but from all neighbouring towns also, for the purpose of seeing them. And why was it that that triumph was of all triumphs the most acceptable and the most delightful to the Roman people? Because nothing is sweeter than victory. But there is no more certain evidence of victory than to set those whom you have often been afraid of, led in chains to execution.

Why did you not act in this manner? Why was that pirate so concealed as if it were impiety to behold him? Why did you not execute him? For what object did you reserve him? Have you ever heard of any captain of pirates having been taken prisoner before, who was not executed? Tell me one original whose conduct you imitated; tell me one precedent. You kept the captain of the pirates alive in order, I suppose, to lead him in your triumph in front of your chariot. For, indeed, there was nothing wanting but for the naval triumph to be decreed to you on the occasion of a most beautiful fleet of the Roman people having been lost, and the province plundered.

Come now—you thought it better that the captain of the pirates should be kept in custody, according to a novel practice, than that he should be put to death according to universal precedent. What then is that custody? Among what people? Where is he kept? You have all heard of the Syracusan stone-quarries. Many of you are acquainted with them. It is a vast work and splendid; the work of the old kings and tyrants. The whole of it is cut out of rock excavated to a marvellous depth, and carved out by the labour of great multitudes of men. Nothing can either be made or imagined so closed against all escape, so hedged in on all sides, so safe for keeping prisoners in. Into these quarries men are commanded to be brought even from other cities in Sicily, if they are commanded by the public authorities to be kept in custody.

Because he had imprisoned there many Roman citizens who were his prisoners, and because he ordered the other pirates to be put there too, he was aware that if he committed this counterfeit captain of the pirates to the same custody, a great many men in those quarries would inquire for the real captain. And therefore he does not venture to commit the man to this best of all and safest of all places of confinement. In fact he is afraid of the whole of Syracuse. He sends the man away. Where to? Perhaps to Lilybaeum. I see; he was not then so entirely afraid of the seafaring men? By no means, O judges. To Panormus then? I understand; although indeed, since he was taken within the Syracusan district, he ought, at all events, to have been kept in prison at Syracuse, if he was not to be executed there.